Scott Kleeschulte, Missing St. Charles Boy, Featured on Nancy Grace

​CNN's Nancy Grace made her name as a talk show host by aggressively -- some would say obsessively -- chronicling the mysterious disappearances of photogenic, upper-middle-class blondes and pregnant moms.

But though we'll admit to finding Grace more than a bit annoying, we've got to give her credit where it's due. These days, she's turning her laser beam focus onto a host of other missing Americans -- kids, minorities and even dudes who may not draw Laci Peterson-sized ratings, but whose families are still equally deserving of media attention.

(You might cynically surmise that Grace is only focusing on these cases because there has been no Natalee Holloway-style Missing Blonde to tantalize America lately. And you might be right. But hey -- bringing national attention to these cases is still a good thing. So let's roll with it.)

This week, Grace's show featured a case that's all too close to home -- that of Scott Kleeschulte, a nine-year-old boy who disappeared from St. Charles, Missouri, in 1988.

Scott vanished on the last day of his first-grade year, just one block from his home. On the program, his brother Richard Kleeschulte speaks to the bucolic nature of St. Charles at the time of Scott's disappearance: "They tell you not to play in the streets, but that's where we'd play, up at the top of the streets. That's where he was...There was a neighborhood full of 100 kids, probably, but five minutes from our house, there was nothing but farmlands and fields and dirt trails. Stuff like that."

When a late-afternoon storm hit, the family assumed Scott had taken refuge in another family's house. Instead, the boy disappeared without a trace.

Anyone with information about Scott's case is urged to call the St. Charles Police Department 314-949-3300. He may not be as famous as Chandra Levy, but his family still deserves answers.